Learning philosophy.

[Atticus]

Because they're not the kind of philosophers used in discussions of that quality? That does happen much more with the continental guys, these indeed were just pulled out of hat.

My perspective on this is also twisted because where I studied continental philosophy was pop, Heidegger was the fad then. And his followers were the worst. They were like a religious cult. I don't know enough of the guy to say whether he was a charlatan, and people who I thought smart and honest praised him too. But then there were those others...

Also, the fake conversation I presented didn't quite capture what I was trying to say. Of course it's often good to say that this guy said this and that. Sometimes however people get tangled with that. Instead of talking about what is the truth, they begin to talk on what somebody thought was the truth, or what he really meant was the truth. Or what kind of word he used in his book where he wrote about the truth.

Good example would be Husserl, who understood that philosophy has come too far from our everyday experience and that we should go "back to the things themselves", which he calls phenomenology. Then he writes hundred books on what the phenomenology is, but doesn't go back to the things themselves.

I don't know if this made the thing any clearer...

 

[lovett]

Actually, because those people (including the entire school of logical positivism) have almost nothing to say about the analysis of knowledge (i.e. "What is Knowledge?")! I say 'oddly unfortunate' because pick most normal random distribution of famous philosophers and they will have something to say on the subject.

As per your wider point, I don't really agree. I don't know much continental philosophy, and not knowing much I prefer to keep quiet about it. But I do know quite a bit about analytic philosophy. Actually, the divide is a bit forced nowadays; better to say I know quite a bit about the sort of philosophy which dominates departments in the UK and US. At its best, this sort of philosophy is highly rigorous and leans heavily on formal tools (various logics) and careful -regimented- argumentation. This is something one has to be trained in. It is not something one picks up by doing physics, or engineering or history. An interest in these areas is surely commendable in its own right, but it will not help inculcate one into the body and practice of modern philosophy. And in many cases, 'outside interests' will do very little good. What could physics possibly have to tell me about the fundamental principles of justice, or -the above example- what knowledge is?

Now, I don't mean to say that outside interests don't generally inform philosophy. Certain areas are crucially informed by other fields (perception, for instance). And one of the most compelling images of metaphysics is as a project contiguous to, but more speculative than, the natural sciences. But mainstream philosophy is certainly not blind to that; indeed, it can sometimes be a little too eager to take onboard scientific studies. The point to make here is that, as with any discipline, if you want to learn about that discipline you will be best served learning about that discipline. Not a discipline with oblique impact on some areas of it. Philosophy is no different.

 

[Atticus]

(Wittgenstein's On certainty is about knowledge, but that's not relevant here).

Yes, things are different in US & K, and what I said doesn't apply those places as good.

I don't know what you mean exactly by formal tools and regimented arguments, but don't either understand why they would be so elusive to physics students.

While physics doesn't maybe tell you much about the principles of justice, it does have something to do with what knowledge: to many people it is the ideal form of it, and it's pretty close to the everyday use of the word taken to the extreme.

To speak about the principles of justice, it wouldn't hurt to read jurisprudence.... My point isn't that having any other major helps you with all the parts of philosophy, but that almost all the parts of philosophy have a corresponding part in other disciplines that they benefit from.

Why couldn't the other subject be major then? It can, but to many people it's too easy to have superficial knowledge on their minor disciplines.

Another way to look at it is that philosophy is too theoretical: you can think what is justice and what is not, but exposure to courts and the practice of law teaches you something you can't read from books. Physics teaches you something similar on knowledge. I think maths teaches on logic and ontology.

Similarly, a mathematicians who knows nothing about physics or computing or something like that loses something. Or a novelist whose only life has been writing literature, or a politician who hasn't ever tried anything else. They might have the form, but lack the substance, so to say.

A third way to look at it is experimental: think of famous philosophers. How many of them started their careers as philosophers?

 

[Azale]

You seem like you would make a perfect lawyer. Philosophy majors tend to do very well in the LSAT.

 

[BvBPL]

I have found that, with all other considerations being equal, those who studied philosphy tend to be invariably more interesting while drunk then those that did not pursue that course of study.

This consideration alone is unlikely to justify the cost of a four year degree, let alone a graduate one, but it is probably worth an associate's degree.

 

[Birdjaguar]

"Fifty! Fifty! Where are you?"

In general, I prefer to hire potential managers with college degrees. A decent college program provides better thinking skills, better writing skills and usually a broader knowledge base that managers need. I don't care too much what their degree was actually in.

One of my best managers has only a HS degree. He has lots of experience and excellent instincts. I am moving him to a significant position where he will manage 45 people with financial responsibilities, but for him to succeed I will have to mentor him in what I consider basic thinking and analytical skills, as well as, improve his writing. I am changing the scope of his thinking and broadening his outlook. I estimate it will take me two years to get him where I want him to be. I think he is worth the time and effort, but wish he had had more education.

 

[lovett]

(Wittgenstein's On certainty is about knowledge, but that's not relevant here).

Yes, things are different in US & K, and what I said doesn't apply those places as good.

I don't know what you mean exactly by formal tools and regimented arguments, but don't either understand why they would be so elusive to physics students.

While physics doesn't maybe tell you much about the principles of justice, it does have something to do with what knowledge: to many people it is the ideal form of it, and it's pretty close to the everyday use of the word taken to the extreme.

To speak about the principles of justice, it wouldn't hurt to read jurisprudence.... My point isn't that having any other major helps you with all the parts of philosophy, but that almost all the parts of philosophy have a corresponding part in other disciplines that they benefit from.

Why couldn't the other subject be major then? It can, but to many people it's too easy to have superficial knowledge on their minor disciplines.

Another way to look at it is that philosophy is too theoretical: you can think what is justice and what is not, but exposure to courts and the practice of law teaches you something you can't read from books. Physics teaches you something similar on knowledge. I think maths teaches on logic and ontology.

Similarly, a mathematicians who knows nothing about physics or computing or something like that loses something. Or a novelist whose only life has been writing literature, or a politician who hasn't ever tried anything else. They might have the form, but lack the substance, so to say.

A third way to look at it is experimental: think of famous philosophers. How many of them started their careers as philosophers?

At the moment? Almost none. I could list the ones I know on one hand.

As per your points, I think it is pretty clear why physics courses don't teach physics students formal logic and careful natural language argumentation. They have no need for that kind of thing. Here's a small exercise from a first-year logic example:

We have, then, three choices: to send the Ring over the Sea, to use it against Sauron, or to destroy it. But we can only send it over the Sea if the path to the Havens has not been closed. And we can only destroy it if the Morgul passes are unguarded. So to use the Ring against Sauron is the only choice left to us. That is because the Nazgul have closed the path to the Havens, and — unless he is a fool — Sauron will have guarded the Morgul passes heavily.

Anyone who has taken this course should be able to formalize this argument into logical notation and prove it in truth table or a system of natural deduction. This is an incredibly simple argument. Any competent student could do it in less than a minute. But physicists, obviously, don't need this sort of ability because natural language argument are not that useful in physics. So they do not have these skills. I am not, obviously, saying they could not acquire them. But learning physics is not the way to do it.

A dissimilar point applies to jurisprudence. If by jurisprudence you mean philosophy of law (as some people do), then of course reading jurisprudence can be helpful with some parts of philosophy. But If you mean a knowledge of how actual courts work, well that's simply not all that useful for finding the principle of social justice. Social justice is about how society should be organized in the widest possible sense. It is little help to find how a sub-section of society is in fact organized. It is an old problem: we cannot infer much about how things ought to be by how they in fact are. I am inclined to think a month spent in the less salutary parts of Kolkata would be more helpful if one wanted to come to the principles of social justice.

Now, again I am not denying that philosophy can be greatly informed by other disciplines nor that work elsewhere can yield philosophical progress. But you have the wrong view of philosophy if you think it is best studied by studying something out. To say that is to essentially discount it as an academic discipline. It is to conceive philosophy departments as place where people sit around until some inspiration strikes them entirely disconnected from the rest of reality, and disconnected from any sort of interactive culture. That is not what the practice of philosophy is like. And I can assure you, if you think it is easy to have superficial knowledge on subjects which are not philosophy, it is very easy to have superficial knowledge in philosophy.

(Incidentally Wittgenstein says very little about what knowledge is in On Certainty. That sort of question is antithetical to his entire later philosophy.)

 

[Mr. Dictator]

I have found that, with all other considerations being equal, those who studied philosphy tend to be invariably more interesting while drunk then those that did not pursue that course of study.

This consideration alone is unlikely to justify the cost of a four year degree, let alone a graduate one, but it is probably worth an associate's degree.

Cocktail Party Master should be a viable career path.

 

[BvBPL]

But If you mean a knowledge of how actual courts work, well that's simply not all that useful for finding the principle of social justice. Social justice is about how society should be organized in the widest possible sense.

There's a fair bit of social justice emphasis at my law school. What's more it is partical as well, ie discussions of what techniques lawyers can use to ensure parties receive representation.

Last night we had a debate on whether or not lawyers can ethically charge potential clients more or less based upon the clients' levels of wealth.

 

[Traitorfish]

So you're saying that for lawyers to do their job properly, they're forced to refer to philosophers?

 

[Atticus]

Anyone who has taken this course should be able to formalize this argument into logical notation and prove it in truth table or a system of natural deduction. This is an incredibly simple argument. Any competent student could do it in less than a minute. But physicists, obviously, don't need this sort of ability because natural language argument are not that useful in physics. So they do not have these skills. I am not, obviously, saying they could not acquire them. But learning physics is not the way to do it.

It takes more than first year logic to convince me. It's not that hard to learn, and usually at least here, it's mathematicians and physicists who excel on those courses, partly because they do that kind of thinking without the formalism (or sometimes with the formalism).

(As a sidetrack: Is the argument lacking the premiss that Sauron is not fool a trap? Similarly, the Wittgenstein tangent feels like a trap, since I'm starting to sound like what I so disliked in my first post to this thread. (and I do btw not agree with that judgement on On certainty, but won't go deeper in it)).

I also wrote some arguments against the other things you posted, but thought it's of no use to post it: we're speaking of whole different places, and I see my point more as a matter of a taste than fact, so there's only limited use of presenting arguments for it.

I wasn't really trying to say that the best way to learn philosophy is to learn physics (or something else), but I think it's the best way to start learning philosophy. To do it as a minor and then switch to it once you've got some other experience too.

I have first hand experience on this kind of issue, since I studied maths, but was too lazy to go deep with physics, which was the motivation behind the areas of maths I studied. Eventually the whole thing begun to feel like masturbation, except not fun.

It is to conceive philosophy departments as place where people sit around until some inspiration strikes them entirely disconnected from the rest of reality, and disconnected from any sort of interactive culture. That is not what the practice of philosophy is like.

That's not what philosophy is like, but I know philosophers who do pretty much that: "let's compare the concept of aletheia in the early and late writings of Heidegger". That kind of stuff is pretty much what the Heidegger worshippers did in my uni. I tried to find out what is so great about H., but it was extremely difficult. The story begins: "In Sein und Zeit Heidegger asks being". You can only imagine how many times I've asked heideggerists, what that means, with the result that no one of them ever gave an answer, and one even got mad at me.

A friend of mine, a mathematician, said that it means "Heidegger asks what being is, but doesn't want to use the word 'is' in that sentence". That makes sense, but I do wonder, why none of his fanbois managed to answer that. Instead they employ that nonsensical way of writing elsewhere too: "Heidegger asks time", which pretty much sounds like "Heidegger asks what time it is".

But yes, I imagine it's not like that in the US or even in UK. And I believe philosophy students there do a lot more thinking than they do in my alma mater for example. To gain a BA degree, except for the elementary logic course they had two ~10-20 page essays (usually with one page of references, of which 2-5 read) where they have to do something instead of reading and/or listening. Courses on ethics, political philosophy, philosophy of science etc etc, they had no exercises at all.

On the other hand, the tuition payments in the US are probably a goof enough reason to put effort on some other subject too. And that's probably the reason why we have so different attitude among the students: they have the option of studying philosophy as a mere goofing around or as a vanity thing.

 

[El_Machinae]

More anecdotally, I found that I got a tremendous amount of intellectual benefit from just a couple of philosophy classes. I really enjoyed them. I found the same from my economics, ecology, and ethology courses.

 

[Antilogic]

Once upon a time, the philosophers did hard science as a hobby. Now the trend has reversed.

 

[Traitorfish]

Although what remains constant is that it's usually done badly.

 

[sophie]

Although what remains constant is that it's usually done badly.

Commençons donc par écarter tous les faits, car ils ne touchent point à la question.

Spoiler Rules :

Let us begin by setting aside the facts, for they do not affect the question.